Swystun Communications contributed to PRNews’ 7th edition of the CSR and Green Guidebook. Our paper, Changing People’s Behavior: 8 Best Practices in Cause Marketing, is included along with submissions from JetBlue and Time Warner Cable. We cover the efforts of Uber, LUSH, H&M and Gucci. You can purchase it here and here is an excerpt on Gucci’s “Chime for Change”…

Building on the survey results and interviews, we looked at a select number of campaigns cited as best practice examples. One we heard repeatedly was Gucci’s “Chime for Change”. Robert Triefus, Gucci’s Chief Marketing Officer describes the investment, ”Chime for Change aims to realize a world where girls and women have the safety and protection they need to thrive.”

It was launched at TED and backed by celebrity endorsements from Salma Hayek and Frida Giannini. It has since thrown a mega-concert headlined by Beyonce, Madonna and Jennifer Lopez. Recently it hosted Chimehack 2, “a female hackathon to develop solutions for relevant challenges in today’s world.” Chime for Change has been lauded for directly engaging consumers using a crowd-funding platform called Catapult.

For all of this they get admirable press. Yet, outside of the fashion industry, precious few people have actually heard of it. Respondents noted that Chime for Change has fallen for two common traps in cause marketing. The first involves celebrity. Celebrities are often used as avatars for the cause and a quick way to raise awareness.

This presents a long-term disconnect as consumers may desire to be a celebrity but they cannot easily relate to them. It produces an artificial association with the cause. Second, the cause leverages big events that generate press releases but questionable results. Chime for Change is an amazing premise executed in a traditional way. One respondent said she would be surprised if 1 in 100 of Gucci’s own customers have heard of the program.